


Like no other pain I've ever known

by by_no_one_more_than_me (Lady_Cleo)



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'm not telling you how it ends, Song Lyrics, Songfic, You Have Been Warned, i dare you, read it and find out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Cleo/pseuds/by_no_one_more_than_me
Summary: Ethan comes along and Leanne develops a heart condition.Songfic inspired by "Lost Without You" by Freya Ridings





	Like no other pain I've ever known

**Author's Note:**

> This song has been speaking to me since I first heard it on an episode of Good Behavior, and it really applies to a lot of couples and pairings. And then Code Black came back and I wrote my first fic and the next time I listened to it, this happened.

**_Standing on the platform, watching you go/ It's like no other pain I've ever known._ **

The day Ethan leaves, Leanne can actually **feel** the crack form in her heart, even though she knows it's not medically possible.

Even if it's technically happened before.

The day she lost her family her heart had skipped several beats, like it was beating a final Morse Code transmission of their names... as if any part of her would ever forget. She still wonders why pain that extreme - the grief of lost love in any form - does not kill you outright. It should, if only to save you the agony of having to keep going.

But Mama and Neal and the Chief and friends in unexpected places pulling together to make a patchwork family make her keep going, show her the light at the end of the dark days, remind her that Angels isn't just where they work - it's what they _do_.

Then she meets Ethan, and her heart again does something unexpected. It wakes up.

_**I've been strong for so long/ I never thought how much I needed you** _

She's no Sleeping Beauty suspended in ageless slumber; he's no Prince Charming bringing her back to life with a tender loving kiss. Oh no. No fast flashy fairy tale for her.

It creeps up on her, stealthy as a rapidly mutating virus... with just as much lethal potential. Things are always dangerous when the heart is involved.

She doesn't deny he's got charm to go with those eyes, personality and warmth and humor and a completely delectable scent that can _not_ come from a bottle... all in one very nice package.

The first time the thought shoots through her head that she'd like to unwrap it sometime, she has to take 5 whole seconds to shake it off. Jesse just gives her A Look before handing her the next chart.

She is Leanne Rorish, Daddy, badass M.D. She is above things like that, mostly because they don't work.

But though her heart is encased in ice that was beginning to thaw long before he arrived, she just... _knows_ it doesn't work like that. Cole hadn't worked out like that, locker room ambush kiss notwithstanding. He'd still left. Neal hadn't worked like that, and they'd been dancing around each other for _years_. Because Christa showed up and... Leanne figures it's best to let herself freeze over again. Just a little.

_**You said you wanna see the world/ I said... go** _

Normally it would be a good thing at the start of shift, but Ethan looks way too happy. It's the kind of inexplicable 'mom's got a sixth sense' feeling that serves her well with kids and interns alike.

He spots her and closes the distance at full grinning gallop, wrapping her up in his arms and sweeping her off her feet. Of course there's a reason for such behavior, and Leanne's gonna know it... just as soon as her feet touch the ground again. Except even when he returns her to earth, Ethan doesn't let go. His hands are still on her waist, his pinkies an obscenely minute distance from the tops of her hips. Her hands are still on his shoulders, palms molded over his clavicles and fingertips resting at the top of his supraspinatus and trapezius.

He's gotten a post. Field Surgery Instructor. Teaching soldiers in the Med Corps how to be doctors on the battlefield. Isn't it amazing? It's an incredible opportunity and he's sharing all kinds of relevant and important details that she can't hear over the deafening ring of two truths in her head. He hasn't let her go yet... and he's leaving.

And against her better judgment (or maybe her head is the only part of her capable of making good choices right now) she eases out of his hold and agrees that it  **is** an amazing opportunity. Her hands give him a squeeze for good luck and her ears detect her hollowly convincing voice telling him to stay safe before she moves away.

Because asking him to stay is ridiculous. They're not a thing. The slim possibility that whatever this unnamed thing is between them could _become_ a Thing with a Name is not reason enough to ask.

No matter how much she wants to.

_**Hits me at full speed/ Feels like I can't breathe** _

She and a few other members from Angels see him off, cherishing hugs and hastily spoken sentiments as the train pulls out. She's been reciting alphabetized drug categories from the PDR instead of letting herself listen but she knows he's going... somewhere, then somewhere else and will email with an address so they can write and send care packages. Leanne finds herself promising her famous triple fudge brownies and whatever other recipes he requests, as long as he writes her to ask.

It takes a week after the crack forms but it finally hits her like a bullet train (or maybe just a bullet) when she gets home one night. Keys in the bowl, bag on the table, shoes off, Ariel asleep. She contemplates food, but just finishes the Luna Bar Jesse thrust on her about 200 hours ago while waiting for the shower to hit just the right temperature. Even if she had the patience to wait, a bath might end up in her going under... and she can't take anymore of that feeling right now.

The water sluices over her skin like phantom touches, and she tips her face up to wash off the day's residue and let out a damp sigh. 

_**WHAM!**_   Her heart slams painfully in her chest and she draws in a jagged breath over the sharp ache behind her ribs. Trying to get her bearings against the smooth tile, she waits, every med text spooling fast like microfilm reels in her mind.  _ **WHAM!**_   It hits again, doubling her over, and her mind's eye paints a lurid picture of the shattered slivers of a broken heart making her bleed internally. She knows better. It's -  _ **WHAM!**_   Something she has no freaking clue about. She's folded onto herself on the bench seat trying to catalogue, to understand. The pain is off the charts. It feels like her heart is being crushed through a wormhole, like her lungs are full of glass shards and barb wire, and there's not a single logical, rational, medical explanation. She can't have a virus or a previously undiagnosed condition, it's not a heart attack or a panic attack, and there's no family history of _anything_ like this unless you count her Aunt Tessa swearing she felt her heart break the day her husband died.  _ **WHAM!**_

Leanne sets her jaw against the pain and proclaims in her mind that _this_  is **not that**. She slides all the way to the tiled floor, curled up like burnt paper, fingers in her hair and a scream trapped behind her lips as the water rains down like unrelenting sorrow from on high.

God, she misses him.

**_This pain inside me/ My world is crumbling_ **

Leanne's been noticeably... quiet for over a month. She still commands attention without question and gets things done even at less than an indoor voice, but it's... unDaddylike. Someone asks if she's alright at least once a shift, even if they stupidly take her at her word that she and everything else is fine when there's _that_ _look_ in her eye.

Angus mentions Ethan's address came through and she bakes two huge batches of death by chocolate, leaving one in the lounge to be shared by coworkers and passing off the box to someone to mail off for her. Some part of her can't take knowing exactly where he is. The rest of her doesn't call her out on it.

But that was last week. 

She and Jesse really get into it when he suggests she take the next day off. (She's not even on the schedule, but she's notorious for showing up on her away days regardless of that tiny fact because they usually end up needing her.) The Chief intervenes when their shouting overcomes the barrier of the lounge and carries all the way to a Center Stage in full swing.

"Knock it off!" And Mama and Daddy do just that. Guthrie is instantly calmer, but no less authoritative. "Now. I'm not even gonna say it, because I know you know." They have the good grace to look chastened. "Jesse, you're with me tomorrow. Leanne, you're off."

"But-"

"Off. Starting now. In fact, if I see you here before 10am Wednesday and you aren't strapped to a gurney, I'm writing you up." Leanne weighs her words very carefully against the 3 hours remaining in shift, the fact that Ariel's on a school trip, and a few other ultimately inconsequential factors because she just keeps her mouth shut, clocks out and goes.

She drives to the beach, buys something edible and partially healthy from a food truck and sits in the shade of a lifeguard tower, toes in the sand, eyes on the waves and the setting sun. When the chill of night starts to wrap around her heart, she gets up, shaking off the sand and leftover crumbs of thought before heading home.

Leanne doesn't _just_ run a bath. Candles are lit, the good bubble bath is added, a soothing blues playlist is unraveling from Ariel's iPod dock, her hair is clipped up, and a glass of a full-bodied red stands next to a sweating pint of Phish Food. The water cradles her, and she lets out a breath she doesn't realize she's been holding. It's been a while.

3 hours and 2 water recharges later, she emerges boneless and sated on calories, just enough latent energy to unstop the drain and crawl under the covers. She'll deal with everything tomorrow.

_**You were the only safe haven that I've known** _

The day off helps a little. Leanne mostly sleeps, curled up in detergent-scented, dream-hazed oblivion. Eventually she awakens, refreshed and restored and ravenously hungry. She calls the Thai place a few blocks away with an order that'll stretch a couple days. While she waits, she brushes her hair and puts on clean comfy pjs and straightens up the bathroom before heading downstairs to wash her dishes and skim her Netflix queue.

The lively knock at the door is perfectly timed, and she pulls out her wallet on her way to answer it. A quick peek through the peep hole shows a human-sized blob holding a large brown bag, and she's fishing out bills not paying much attention when she pulls open the door. "Hey there. Just checking I have enough cash to give you a nice tip. And her-"

Eyes of piercing espresso meet... well, some days they're a piercing electric blue and others a dark stormy grey. Today they're like slate, full of surprise under hair that continually defies categorization of color. Warm sandy browns and a few shots of blond, a few threads of silver and gunmetal, recently trimmed to military specifications but still long enough to make her fingers itch to card through it.

He's in civvies and he looks good. And it's not just the larb salad, saffron steamed rice, green curry, beef with Thai noodles, and shrimp summer rolls making her mouth water.

The crack in her heart is doing _something_ at the sight of him, but she can't quite tell if it's breaking further apart or sealing itself up. She just knows she needs to speak.

"Where's-"

"Paid him. Thought... maybe... you'd be happy to see me, invite me in." There's a beat where he playfully noses the bag and looks up at her like a hungry puppy. "Feed me?"

She stands mutely aside to let him pass, trying to make sense of this while he blithely sets down his pack in the entryway and the food on the coffee table and heads to the kitchen for plates, utensils, napkins and bottles of ice-cold Thai beer she's had in the back of the fridge for a few months for reasons she can't recall right now. He's chattering brightly, but Leanne couldn't repeat a word if she had a gun to her head. She's just managed to shut the door and decide not to lock it by the time the table is set up, his boots are off and he's been to the hall bath and back to wash his hands, one of which he now offers her.

She takes it and he guides her gently to the couch, releasing her so she can dish up first. Leanne manages to mechanically load her plate and balance it on her knees, momentum failing as she sets it back on the table and just... watches him, gesturing at the flat screen with the remote like a wizard's wand.

She only realizes he's talking again when the sound of her name and the weight of a hand on her arm penetrate her brain. "Leanne? You okay?" No nod, no reply; she's not even sure she blinks. Then both hands are drawing her close, eyes roving in silent examination, the warm puff of his breath ghosting over her lips like a kiss. He's still talking, she still can't hear.

One hand comes up between them, settling against his cheek like it was made to fit there. "Why... what are... how are you _here_?" The hand that covers hers is warm and solid, exerting gentle pressure to hold her to his face as his voice explains, trailing a thin thread of worry.

"Leanne, I think... you misunderstood. I've been assigned as Field Surgery Instructor at the Joint Forces Training Base... in Los Alamitos. I do 6 weeks cycles, 3 weeks off unless the units deploy. I've even been shipped to Vandenberg and Pendleton, and I have an invitation to spend 2 weeks at Nellis in the fall. Air Force but we don't hold that against them."

He's warm, he's real, he's... here. With her.

He's been an hour away by car or train. She's an idiot. And all she can say is "oh."

Ethan's still looking at her, absorbing, probing, and Leanne might be more worried about what he'll see if she wasn't recognizing it in the mirror of his eyes. Those changeable orbs glow warm like a light's been turned on, and somehow she knows that he gets it. They lean in, drawn to each other like magnets, and she would swear there's an audible  _click_ when they connect at last.

They fit together, curves and angles joining seamlessly as hands slide over cotton and press between shoulder blades and cup the curving nape of a neck and map the topography of stubble under the palm. The taste is sweet and lingers on the tongue, the tiny nip he delivers her lower lip softly soothed before they pull back to look at each other again. Leanne smiles, Ethan smiles right back.

The food is just the right temperature as they eat, snuggled against one another, sharing a beer between bites also shared, watching something that entertains without too much engagement. They'd rather focus on each other.

He tells her the brownies were a big hit with his guys, adding his preference that she deliver any future batches in person.

They divide and pack up the leftovers, do dishes, go upstairs and fall asleep wrapped around each other, a safeguard against the world.

He stays. That night, and the rest of his downtime. When the ends of his temp shifts at Angels coincide with hers. When Ariel needs a ride home from practice.

He comes back time and again. He comes home to her, to them. He stays.

The thing has a name. It's love.

_**I think I'm lost without you** _

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't leave them miserable, so please don't kill me.


End file.
